Books, Books and More Books

Earlier this week I splurged and ordered everything on my Amazon "Shopping List."  It was a perfect storm of a book ordering opportunity for I received two Amazon gift cards for Mother's Day and I had credit card points as well.  Some of the titles on my list had been there for a couple of years so I figured now was the time to do something about it before everything becomes digital.  (I confess I own a Kindle and I did spend 99 cents of my splurge money on a mystery novel but that was just one of 20 titles.)  Needless to say, I had fun.

I ordered -
12 knitting books (I have far more knitting books than items that I have actually knit.)
4 children's books for my personal storytelling collection
1 Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons for our family collection
1 book to give to my husband for Father's Day (See, I wasn't just thinking of myself.)
1 The Repurposed Library: 33 Craft Projects That Give Old Books New Life
1 digital book

The books for my storytelling collection are titles that were recommended on various youth services librarian's blogs.  Most of the blogs I added to my Google Reader after coming across them in Flannel Friday Round-Ups so Flannel Friday folk contributed to my book buying binge.  I purchased Stop Kissing Me, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Bugs, I'm the Scariest Thing in the Castle and Are You a Cow?

I find "book art" quite interesting.  I've been collecting examples on my Pinterest page "Paper."  I'm hoping that I will find something in The Repurposed Library that I can actually do.  It may get me inspired to go back to weeding my library's juvenile reference collection.  (I'd much rather be planning a storytime.)

Of course I have no idea where I'm going to put all of these books but I'll worry about that next week.



(Open Clip Art Library)

Storytime Collections

I recently participated in a Tech Challenge given by the Children's Services Section of the New Jersey Library Association.  This Tech Challenge inspired me to start blogging again and to organize the material I have accumulated over the years (which is quite a bit since I have been doing this since 1990).  I was also lucky enough to win a Barnes & Noble gift card for completing the challenge.   This went toward the purchase of some books for my storytime collection.  I have learned over the years that personal favorites can disappear unexpectedly so it's always good to have a back-up.  I also learned the hard way that when this happens, the book cannot be replaced because it is out of print.  I like to use pop-ups with large groups so I have been purchasing those over the years as well.  If you have the space and budget, start a storytelling collection at your library.  If not, start a personal collection.  It does not have to be large.  Many of the titles in my personal collection are out of print and it's great to be able to bring them in when needed for storytimes.

There was not a large selection of pop-ups at the book store but I did find some titles to add to my collection.

Even though I have other dinosaur titles by Paul Strickland, I decided to add A Number of Dinosaurs because of the way the pop-up numbers get larger, counting from 1 to 10.  Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell is already in my library's storytelling collection so this is a back-up of a back-up.  I added Beautiful Oops! by Barney Saltzberg because it would be a good book to use with older children.  I found The Little Green Turtle (illustrated by Adam Rolf, editorial by A.J. Wood and Rachel Williams) in the bargain book section.  I'm seriously thinking of using this title to end my family story time tomorrow. It is not an African folktale but it does feature African animals.

Thank you CSS!